


Flaws

by bepreparedf0rhell



Category: Slipknot (Band)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21657619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bepreparedf0rhell/pseuds/bepreparedf0rhell
Summary: In which they both have their flaws.
Relationships: Jim Root/Reader
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	Flaws

**Author's Note:**

> This is cheesy af tbh. It just kind of happened when I was feeling very self-conscious and awful about myself. I got really into my head and just wondered… how would I want someone to approach me right now? If I could have a partner tell me exactly what I wanted to hear right at this moment, what would it be? To be completely honest I’m not even entirely sure if this is it, but I think it’s cute anyway. 
> 
> ALSO, this is the first reader-insert story I’ve ever written. I tried to keep it gender neutral and as open as possible, but I’m definitely still learning! If there’s anything I missed or messed up on in that regard, please let me know!

“I’m home!”

Jim’s tired voice echoes through the house, snapping your eyes up to their reflection in the mirror in front of you. They’re wide, startled, and you frantically try and scramble together some semblance of clothing to cover your body. You glance at the alarm clock on your bedside table; Jim wasn’t supposed to be home for another hour. You’re glad he’s there, happy to see him, you just wish he hadn’t caught you doing what he had. 

“Hey, babe,” he mumbles as he enters the room, sighing and dropping a guitar case and a backpack on the floor just inside the door. He doesn’t look at you properly yet and you’re glad for it. You know that the second his soft green eyes connect with yours, you’re done for. 

“Hey, Peach,” you say quietly, the nickname falling from your lips easily, and for a second you think maybe your tone is enough to mask what you’re feeling. For a few moments, it seems to be. 

Jim sits on the edge of the bed and busies himself with untying his sneakers and pulling them off, dropping them one by one at his feet. He peels off his socks as well and then his jeans, leaving himself in boxer briefs and a gray tank top. If you weren’t in the mood you were, you would’ve found his current state unbelievably sexy. Granted, you still do, you just can’t bring yourself to act on it. 

He moves across the room and pulls a pair of basketball shorts out of his dresser, slipping into them and then finally turning to look at you properly.

“What’s wrong?” he asks immediately, his eyes clouding over as he looks you up and down. 

His face is always so expressive, so ready to relay his emotions even when he doesn’t want it to, and the concern that immediately fills his features makes tears rise to your eyes. Even behind his long beard and outwardly rugged features, there’s something so soft and genuine about his face. _He’s_ so soft and genuine that sometimes it almost physically pains you. 

You don’t say anything, don’t really even have the words, so you just stand there and stare at him quietly as tears fully form and fall from your eyes. You know what he’ll do next; it’s what he always does next in these situations, and you just wait for it to happen. It only takes half a second before it does. 

“Baby… oh, baby,” Jim says gently, crossing the room to you in a few hurried strides. His impossibly long arms are around you in an instant, pulling you close and holding you to his warm chest. 

“Talk to me,” he urges gently. You’re still not quite able to, and in the few moments’ pause he seems to look down at the bathrobe you’re wearing for the first time. 

You hadn’t stopped to glance at the robe when you’d first grabbed it to pull on when he’d gotten home, and it had been most of the way onto your body before you’d realized it was his robe and not yours like you’d originally hoped. Though normally it wouldn’t have been that odd for Jim to find you in his bathrobe, he also knew you well enough to put the pieces together fairly quickly. 

“You were doing it again, weren’t you?” he asks, though his tone tells you that you don’t really have to answer. He knows already. His face changes with the understanding of the situation and he pulls you towards the bed, sitting you down on it and arranging himself beside you. 

“Talk to me,” he whispers again quietly, so gentle and convincing that finally you feel like you can. 

“Yeah, I was. I… I don’t know, I just… I get so caught up in it sometimes,” you admit quietly, and Jim nods and waits for you to continue. When you don’t, he crooks a thumb under your chin and lifts it slowly so that you’re looking at him.

“I love you,” he says, sounding so sure and honest that it almost makes you cry again. 

“I love you too,” you promise, closing your eyes tightly. 

“Will you let me do something? Please? If it doesn’t work, if you hate it, you can tell me and we can stop and I’ll never do it again.”

You nod hesitantly, not sure what he’s planning but knowing you trust him fully. He stands and offers you his hand, pulling you up with him. He pulls his tank top over his head and then slips out of his shorts, leaving himself standing before you in his underwear. You raise an eyebrow at him but start to understand as he reaches for the belt at the waist of the robe covering your own body. You let him pull it off of you, leaving you just as naked as he is. He pulls a hair tie off of his hand and throws his longish soft brown curls into a bun at the top of his head and then gently guides you to the mirror you’d just been standing in front of ten minutes before. 

You don’t look into it at first, and when you finally do, you find your eyes connecting with the reflection of Jim’s face instead of coming anywhere near your own. Jim is quiet, patient. He stands behind you but off to the side enough that you can see his lanky figure beside yours.

Unfortunately, it’s not the first time Jim’s caught you staring disdainfully at yourself in the mirror. It’s a habit you’ve had since high school, just stripping down and absolutely picking yourself apart, pointing out every single thing you find wrong with yourself until sometimes you’re too exhausted to get out of bed the rest of the day. Usually, Jim will just quietly hold you in bed and make you your favorite meals and watch your favorite movies with you in an attempt to make you feel even a little better. 

“Do you know what I see?” he asks, snapping you out of your thoughts. You shake your head slowly, genuinely not sure where he’s going with this. “I see pure fucking beauty,” he says, and you almost scoff and roll your eyes, but something about the firmness in his tone makes your thoughts sober at once. 

“Jim…” you trail off, cautioning him. While you appreciate his effort, him just standing you in the mirror and telling you you’re beautiful isn’t really going to fix any of the deep down mental shit you’ve got going on. He nods almost like he’d read your thoughts. 

“I know. I know I tell you that you’re beautiful all the time and I know that sometimes it’s just not enough. I wish I knew how to make it mean more. But here’s the thing, okay? I don’t just think you’re beautiful. I think you’re fucking perfect,” he pauses as you do scoff and roll your eyes. “No, I do. Every single thing you look at as a problem, as something you wish you could change, I think they’re perfect. I look at you and I see… I see everything I could’ve ever wanted. Everything about you, everything is so goddamn beautiful to me that I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to be here, to have you here with me,” he finishes, and you can tell by the way he’s looking at you that he knows you’re still not totally convinced. While you’re touched by his words, of course you are, they just… they don’t really resonate with you. You believe he means what he’s saying and you’re so completely glad he feels that way, you just can’t understand why or how he does. 

“Do you know what I see when I look at myself?” he asks, surprising you. He steps further out from beside you so that both of you can see his entire frame. You shake your head. 

He looks himself over and you watch as his eyes linger in certain areas that you aren’t quite able to pinpoint. Various expressions cross his features and you recognize almost all of them as ones that cross your own face when you’re looking at yourself. 

“Flaws. Fucking tons of them,” he says eventually, shaking his head. “I see nothing but fucking flaws.”

His words surprise you somehow. You’d known he had small insecurities, of course he did; everyone did, but you had no idea he was capable of looking at himself with that same disdain you tended to hold for yourself. As you watch him, as you watch his eyes move over his body and cloud over more and more with every moment that passed, suddenly you understand something you haven’t ever before. 

“Jamie,” you whisper the nickname, turning away from the mirror to face him properly. “You’re beautiful,” you tell him simply, running a fingertip from his collarbone all the way down to his hip bone. He shivers at the touch, goosebumps raising over his skin. You smirk, having to resist the urge to kiss a trail down the same path. Maybe later. 

“You’re perfect, and it breaks my fucking heart that you feel the same way about yourself as I feel about me,” you admit, and he nods. 

“I know. It breaks my heart that you feel that way too, but I didn’t do this because I wanted to make you upset. I did it because I wanted you to see that nobody likes everything about themselves. Everyone has things they don’t like, things they hate even, but at the end of the day, someone’s always going to find them beautiful. Someone’s always going to take all of those flaws and turn them into beautiful little things that don’t matter at all. You know how many of my flaws I think about when your hands are on me? Not a goddamn one of them. All I’m thinking about is how much I love you and how glad I am that you love me. I just wanted you to know how I feel, how when I look at you I don’t see a single solitary thing I’d change,” he says, sounding so strong and resolute that you can’t help but smile up at him. 

Before you can mentally talk yourself out of it, you turn back towards the mirror. He turns with you and you look at the two of you for a long moment, taking the full image in. He wraps his long arms around you, pulling you closer to him and holding you there. Somehow, when you’re in his arms everything else seems to fade away. You don’t see any of those things that had been driving you mad just shortly before. All you see is how happy you are within his embrace, how happy he is to be holding you. 

Surely your insecurities aren’t gone and surely they’ll rear their ugly heads again sometime soon, but in that moment all you feel as you look at the two of you is calm happiness.

**Author's Note:**

> wheresyoursavior.tumblr.com


End file.
